


Solace for the Wicked

by DJClawson



Series: Wait, Danny's a Buddhist? [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV), Iron Fist (TV), The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Buddhism, Catholicism, Gen, Grief, I mean how can I possibly do that, Not Defenders Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-05 01:05:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12179886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DJClawson/pseuds/DJClawson
Summary: Everyone grieves on their own schedule. Sometimes you just need a little nudge.





	Solace for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bravinto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravinto/gifts).



> From the prompt: "For this one I'm gonna go along with Charlie Cox and request Matt dealing with Stick's death. What did he mean to Matt? Is he feeling conflicted about him dying? I suppose, he's gotta have some time to reflect on that while he's recovering."

It was a decent evening in the soup kitchen, all things considered. The douchebags were back, a rare second visit from a tiny company that convinced its workers to forgo medical benefits and unionizing in favor of free snacks and wearing sneakers to work. They were in their twenties, probably white, and trying not to act privileged as they doled out bread and soup. Father Lantom didn’t say anything, but he never complained about free help. He also didn’t comment on the cast Matt was wearing on his wrist, which was nice of him.

Matt took up his usual place in the tiny kitchen, where he could work undisturbed. He wasn’t in the mood for the verbal assault from the women’s knitting and bible study group, who stayed to help out sometimes. They thought they were being nice, and definitely not patronizing, by asking if he was seeing someone, or if he would be interested in seeing someone? It was good to have a break from that, especially when he wasn’t able to punch something (or someone) later.

He only picked up his head when he heard Danny Rand come in the front door. He wasn’t in a suit, thank G-d. He was wearing dollar store flip flops and one of Luke’s shirts. His stride was very determined until he was nearly accosted by one of the church ladies, offering a bowl of soup in a plastic cup. She probably thought he was high.

“Oh, thank you,” Danny Rand, billionaire, said, and took the bowl in both hands and drank it down with one very loud slurp, then handed it back. “Thank you very much. But I’m actually looking for someone. His name’s Matt.”

“Oh, of course.” It was Henrietta who answered him and now she probably thought he was Matt’s boyfriend. “He’s in the kitchen.”

Without bothering to turn his head in Danny’s incoming direction, Matt waved his hand. “Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You know you just drank soup meant for the poor, right?”

“Habit,” Danny explained nervously. “I’ll make it up to the church.”

“You’re in the habit of going into shelters and taking their food?”

“I’m a monk,” he replied. “In the morning we would go out into the streets with begging bowls, and that’s how we were fed. Whatever people put in, we had to eat it. So, habit.” He whispered, “Sorry.”

“I guess the dragon wasn’t sharing any of his gold?”

Danny was definitely frowning; he had the type of frown that Matt could hear. “When a layperson feeds a monk, they gain merit. And the monk gets the merit of providing the layperson with the opportunity to give charity. It’s a two-way system. They gave whatever they had, and we ate whatever they gave.”

“What if you didn’t like it?”

“Then it proved that I hadn’t overcome my ego and still divided reality into good or bad instead of embracing emptiness.”

Matt raised his eyebrows. “What if you were allergic?”

“Our bodies are fragile. You can’t expect to be healthy all the time.”

He tried to imagine Danny like the flagellant saints who appeared in his Sunday school picture books, but he couldn’t . And he wasn’t sure if he could really remember what the pictures looked like anyway. But Danny got very serious when it came to his path, whether it involved dragon bones or developing antibodies to local bacteria. “And you still consider yourself a monk.”

“Well, I didn’t _un_ take my vows, so ... “ Danny’s posture shifted. He sounded ready to bounce if this topic continued.

“What are you doing here?” Matt added, “And I’ll know if you lie.”

“Luke said you might ... want some company. While you’re, ahh ...” He gestured to the cast on Matt’s wrist. “I just pointed –”

“I know. And how did Luke know?”

“Because ... Foggy told him? I don’t know what they actually said – just that we’re your friends, maybe we should check up on you while you’re laid up –“

“Which I obviously am,” Matt said, hiding the smile trying to form on his lips. “I have a life outside of work.”

“If I’m disturbing you, I can go.”

He wasn’t, and Matt realized he didn’t want him to go just yet. “They keep me in the back so people don’t ask questions about a blind man preparing their food. And why my aim with the ladle is so good. Did they have carrots in Kundun that needed cutting?” He pointed to the sink. “Wash your hands.”

“Kun’lun,” Danny corrected, sounding less offended than he usually did with that line of questioning. “You don’t mind it?”

“Mind what?”

“Being in the back.”

“I make people nervous,” Matt said. “They’re either worried that I can’t take care of myself or that they might blurt out the questions they desperately want to ask. I’m used to it, but it’s smoother this way. And charity isn’t supposed to be about drawing attention to yourself. Unless you’re the assholes up front.”

Danny dutifully found the carrots and the knives – and of course, he was an expert at knives. He probably could do all of that sushi restaurant chef stuff. “The guys in the blue shirts?” It took him a beat. “I mean, their shirts are blue. The guys working the line.”

“They’re another start-up trying to build credibility,” Matt said. “I think these guys sell software to advertise cars online. I don’t keep track.”

“Do they think people here will buy cars from them?”

“No, but Father Lantom will have to pose with them at the end of the shift and they’ll put the picture of themselves on their website. People like to buy from companies that have the veneer of social responsibility, like those companies that will donate a pair of shoes to some town in Africa for every pair you buy online. But what are we going to do, turn away volunteers? They’re still serving the community.” He paused in his stirring. “I suppose I should apologize ahead of time if this is something that the Rand Corporation does.”

“I don’t know what most of what the corporation does,” Danny freely admitted. “Since I’m the face of the company, someone on the board said maybe I should be the head of charitable spending, but Ward said I would do more harm than good until I knew how to balance a checkbook.”

“Does he know you overheard him?”

“He said it to my face.” Danny didn’t sound angry, and he didn’t get angry when Matt laughed. “This was after he found out I bought a hospital.”

“You bought a hospital.”

“Detective Knight was staying in it, so – yeah. I bought a hospital. The last two weeks have been nothing but meetings sorting that out.”

“Well, don’t try to buy the church, okay? And if they’re eager to sell it to you, that means they’re deeper in debt than I thought they were. Just make a donation to the food pantry, they’ll say a Mass in your name, and everyone will call it a day.”

“I don’t need a Mass.”

“You never know.” Plus, it seemed like Danny needed all the help he could get.

Danny made quick work of the carrots and dumped them into the soup at Matt’s command, then proceeded to do the same with the potatoes. His hands were quick. They were covered in calluses, maybe even more than Matt’s. They were not the hands of a CEO. “What happened to your wrist?”

“The armor wears out faster there,” Matt said. “I was in a debate with someone about his life choices and he decided I was too close, so he hit me with his gun instead of shooting me.”

“And what’s he doing now?”

“Out on bail.” Matt gestured with the spoon to the far corner of the lunch room. “Putting too much salt on his food. Not that I can blame him – the pot roast is crap this week. The guy who makes the meat delivery put extender in it.” But Danny didn’t respond because he was frozen. “Don’t stare. It’s not like he knows I’m here.”

“I thought you would be … “ Danny took his time searching for the word. “ … Less forgiving.”

“It’s not my responsibility to forgive. That’s G-d’s,” Matt explained. “And I think if he’s going to continue peddling his wares, it’s not going to be in Hell’s Kitchen. That and I may have a muscle relaxer in my system. Claire’s figured out that a good way to get me off the streets is to dope me.”

Danny was staring at him now. “I’ve seen you take a lot of hits and keep on moving.”

“She said I would heal faster if I was carrying less tension. And then Foggy got in on it – and Karen – It was a lot of phone calls.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it’s better to just make the people you love happy. And it’s Sunday anyway. I don’t go out on Sundays.” Matt sighed. “Stick would call me a pussy for letting my guard down.” He paused, crossed himself, then continued sorting the ingredients on the counter by smell.

“You didn’t want us to work with him,” Danny said – as ever, stating the obvious. “And he tried to kill me.”

“Yeah, that was pretty much Stick. He either tried to kill you or he tried to get you to kill someone else,” Matt said. “And the more you would resist him, the harder he would try – “

And just like that, he couldn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t know why he couldn’t, or why his body froze up entirely. He didn’t even breathe.

“I don’t think he was angry at me,” Danny said, his voice softer. “I think he was just disappointed. I did fail to protect Kun’lun, and now I was going to fail to protect New York. I think he was thought there was only one way to prevent that, and since none of you would do it, he did it himself. Or would have, if –“ He stopped just short of mentioning Elektra’s name. Or the fact that she had impaled Stick. “Well.  You know.”

“Yeah,” Matt said, but his chest hurt when he spoke. “I know.” His legs, briefly so stiff, were jelly, and he slid down the side of the industrial refrigerator. He might have hit the ground if Danny hadn’t pulled a stool out of nowhere and slid it under him. “Thanks.”

“He said we were at war, and winning the war was his duty,” Danny offered. “He wasn’t wrong.”

“He was always going on about that, since the beginning.” Matt also didn’t know why his voice was breaking. “He never really told me what it was about, just to be prepared for it.”

“When you were a kid? He trained you as a kid, right?” Danny asked, to which Matt just nodded. “He said you were the closest thing he had to family. You and Elektra.”

“He tried to kill her, too,” Matt said. “When she found out she was the Black Sky, and the Hand found out, he tried to kill her so they couldn’t get to her. Hell, I’m surprised he didn’t try to kill me.”

Danny carefully positioned himself so he was squatting above the dirty floor, his back up against the fridge next to Matt. They sat in silence – or Danny did, and Matt kept wiping away tears so he wasn’t _really_ crying.

“Usually I can just – be angry. And if I’m angry I can go to the gym, and get it out of my system. But Claire said if I don’t let my arm heal properly, I might need surgery. So I’ve just been filling the hours.” Thinking. He was spending too much time thinking. When he was focused on what was in front of him, he didn’t have to do that. Sometimes it was nearly impossible, and he would become the devil, like his father, and become an unstoppable creature of rage.

The soup was boiling away but that was okay. Second shift was always a smaller crowd.

“In one of the previous lives of the Buddha,” Danny said after a long stillness where Matt could almost forget he was there, “he was on a ship, and he discovered that the captain was planning on murdering all of the passengers. The Buddha knew that if he told the other passengers, they would kill the captain and spend ten thousand years in hell, working off their bad karma. If he just let the captain kill them, the captain would get the same punishment. So the Buddha decided he would kill the captain. He would sacrifice himself and take on the karmic burden so that the captain and the passengers wouldn’t have to. He accepted his fate and he murdered the captain, and at that moment, because of his sacrifice, he became Enlightened.”

“But he murdered someone.”

“But his intention was pure. He only did it to save the others from both death and punishment from their actions,” Danny said. “Don’t worry. There’s a million of these stories about the Buddha’s previous lives and a lot of them don’t make much sense. In one of them, he sees a starving tiger and he doesn’t want the tiger to die so he leaps into its mouth.”

“So suicide is okay?”

Danny shrugged. “I think it helps if you’re the Buddha.”

Matt wiped his eyes with his good arm, and then his cheeks, and then his chin. At least there wasn’t any snot. “Stick was an asshole. He abandoned me when I really needed him. But without him, I can’t even imagine what my life would have been like. The things he taught me, no one else could teach. It wasn’t just fighting. He taught me how to use my senses to get around. He taught me to focus and concentrate and not be overwhelmed by all the things I couldn’t see.  Without him, I would have just gone insane.”

“Before he died, he talked about forgiveness. He didn’t specify, but I think he knew the consequences of what he was about to do,” Danny said. “He told me I wouldn’t feel any pain. The last thing he said to me was that he wished there was another way.” He took a deep breath, because it gave Matt time to think. “I don’t think he was a terrible person. I think he was a soldier who did what he thought needed to be done. It doesn’t make everything right, but … intention counts for a lot. It can transform an action from evil to good.” He added, “Also he taught me a valuable lesson about backing up the data on my phone.”

Matt laughed. It felt good to laugh. “Is that so?”

“I had about two hundred photos of my desk or my thumb so nothing of value was really lost. And this is like, the third phone I’ve gone through so now I just get the monthly insurance plan.”

“What happened to the others?”

“I think it’s better if I don’t say.”

“Dropped it in toilet?”

“Uh, one of them, yeah.” He slapped Matt on the shoulder. “Come on. I don’t think I should deprive any more people of their soup.”

Matt stood – though Danny’s arm taking his helped more than it should have – and they went back to work. Aside from some instructions back and forth, they didn’t talk much through the rest of the shift, when Father Lantom came in and insisted Matt let someone relieve him.

“A teenager who needs material for her college application essay just came in,” Lantom said. “I need to give her _something_ to do.” He turned to Danny. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”

“This is my friend Danny,” Matt said, intentionally leaving out his last name.

“Hello, Danny. I’m Father Lantom, and you’re welcome at the church anytime.”

“Oh,” Danny stammered as they shook hands. “I’m not – I’m Buddhist.”

“And as you can see, we have many opportunities here for making merit,” Lantom said without missing a beat.  “Nice to meet, you, Danny. And Matthew, it’s always good to see you.”

“Thank you, Father,” Matt said, holding back a cheesy joke about not being able to see him back. He whispered to Danny, “Let’s get out before the church ladies double-team us.”

“It can’t be that bad,” Danny said, but Matt pinched him on that spot just above his elbow that was a pressure point. “Ow! Okay.”

“Just trust me,” Matt said with a smile and they cleared the block quickly. “Does that shirt have bullet holes?”

“They’re sewn up,” Danny insisted. “I never know how to dress to anything.” Matt chuckled at that, but Danny kept talking. “Did Stick have a real name?”

“I’m sure he would have told you it was Stick.” Matt could only remember asking – only once – why he was named that, and Stick hit him with his cane and said, ‘It’s appropriate.’

“He was talking to Luke and he said he was in prison. He must have had a name that’s on record.”

“You mean a good Christian name? I’m sure that’s been wiped from whatever records it was on.” He paused, sticking his cane into the grove in the sidewalk pavement. “You want to have a Mass said for Stick? Do you believe in G-d?”

“What I believe isn’t important. It’s not why I would do it.” Danny seemed firm about this, but not in the blind, bold way he proclaimed other things he believed in. “If you want me to arrange a puja offering ceremony, I could find someone to do it. There’s temples all over New York with qualified monks. But … you knew him. He was your teacher. We should do it your way.”

“You want to honor his memory? Do you think he deserves it?”

Danny shrugged. “Like I said – I didn’t really know him.”

Because this wasn’t about Danny – or Stick. It was about Matt, who was silent. This time, Danny was patient. He acted like he would have waited in the rain or the snow for an answer. Maybe that was something people did in Kun’lun.

“We could both do it,” Matt said. “A Mass isn’t expensive.” He picked his head up. “Would you come to hear it?”

“Of course,” Danny said.

It hadn’t occurred to Matt to do just do it himself. Stick wasn’t religious, probably wasn’t even Christian. Even at this late stage, Matt knew almost nothing about him, and even if he did, he only imagined himself alone, giving a eulogy to an empty church. But with Danny with him, it would be different.

“Okay,” Matt said. “Let’s do it.”

And despite his upcoming obligation, he felt lighter.

The End 

**Author's Note:**

> Additional notes:
> 
> Because Kun’lun is a mystical city that only connections with mainland Tibet/China every fifteen years, I figure they’ve developed their own brand of Buddhism that’s a mishmash of different traditions taken from the different people who’ve visited them. I’ve also changed the word “karma” to “merit” because that’s how it translates in their particular circumstance, and because the word “karma” has different meanings in different cultures, including America.
> 
> The tradition of daily begging dates back to the time of the Buddha (circa 2500 years ago), when monks would go out beginning twice a day. This tradition continues in Theravada Buddhism, which is popular in East Asian communities such as Sri Lanka, Burma, and Thailand. Monks will go out at least once a day, and the communities around the monasteries will know when to expect them and provide them with food, which they will take back to the monastery to eat. Feeding them is considered an honor.
> 
> Some traditions do not require begging, particularly the Mahayana traditions strong in Tibet and China, where monasteries were often also landowners with peasants working under them to grow and serve their food. Many monasteries today make their own food, and sometimes sell it to raise money for other living expenses.
> 
> There is at least one sect that still follows the “eat everything in your bowl” rule. It’s an extreme sect in Japan, and they only do it occasionally, and for only a period of a few weeks. The monks feel this is one of the more difficult parts of their training (compared to running barefoot in the snow and only sleeping 3 hours a night) because they massively overeat and get very sick. They’re happy when it’s over.
> 
> The two stories of the Buddha are real stories used in Buddhist teachings, but the specifics vary from culture to culture.


End file.
